The King's General Read online

  "How green the grass is after the morning rain," and "It is something chilly for the time of year" were phrases I had never yet used in my life, even to a stranger, but they seemed, at that moment, to be what was needed to the occasion. Yet though they rose unbidden to my tongue, I did not frame them, but continued looking out upon the garden in silence, with Richard as dumb as myself. And then in a low voice, clipped and hard, he said:

  "If I am silent you must forgive me. I had not thought, after fifteen years, to find you so damnably unchanged."

  This streak back from the indifferent present to the intimate past was a new shock to be borne, but a curiously exciting one.

  "Why damnably?" I said, watching him over the rim of my glass.

  "I had become used, over a long period, to a very different picture," he said. "I thought of you as an invalid, wan and pale, a sort of shadow without substance, hedged about with doctors and attendants. And instead I find--this." He looked me then full in the face with a directness and a lack of reserve that I remembered well.

  "I am sorry," I answered, "to disappoint you."

  "You misinterpret me," he said. "I have not said I was disappointed. I am merely speechless." He drained his glass once more and put it back on the table. "I shall recover," he said, "in a moment or two. Where can we talk?"

  "Talk?" I asked. "Why, we can talk here, I suppose, if you wish to."

  "Amidst a host of babbling fools and screaming children--not on your life," he answered. "Have you not your own apartments?"

  "I have," I replied with some small attempt at dignity, "but it would be considered somewhat odd if we retired there."

  "You were not used to quibble at similar suggestions in the past," he said.

  This was something of a blow beneath the belt, and I had no answer for him.

  "I would have you remember," I said, with lameness, "that we have been strangers to one another for fifteen years."

  "Do you think," he said, "that I forget it for a moment?"

  At this juncture we were interrupted by Temperance Sawle, who, with baleful eyes, had been watching us from a distance, and now moved within our orbit. "Sir Richard Grenvile, I believe," she said.

  "Your servant, ma'am," replied Richard with a look that would have slain anyone less soul-absorbed than Temperance.

  "The Evil One seeks you for his own," she announced. "Even at this moment I see his talons at your throat, and his jaws open to devour you. Repent, repent, before it is too late."

  "What the devil does she mean?" said Richard.

  I shook my head, and pointed to the heavens, but Temperance, warming to her theme, continued:

  "The mark of the Beast is on your forehead," she declared. "The men you lead are become as ravening wolves. You will all perish, every one of you, in the bottomless pit."

  "Tell the old fool to go to hell," said Richard.

  I offered Mistress Sawle a glass of wine, but she flinched as if it had been boiling oil. "There shall be a weeping and a gnashing of teeth," she continued.

  "My God, you're right," said Richard, and, taking her by the shoulders, he twisted her round like a top, and walked her across the room to the fireplace and her husband.

  "Keep this woman under control," he ordered, and there was an immediate silence, followed by a little flutter of embarrassed conversation. Peter Courtney, very red about the neck, hurried forward with a brimming decanter. "Some more wine, sir?" he said.

  "Thank you, no, I've had about as much as I can stand," said Richard. I noticed the young officers, all with their backs turned, examining the portraits on the walls with amazing interest. Will Sparke was one of the little crowd about the fireplace, staring hard at the King's General, his mouth wide open.

  "A good day for catching flies, sir," said Richard pleasantly.

  A little ripple of laughter came from Joan, hastily suppressed as Richard turned his eyes upon her.

  Will Sparke pressed forward. "I have a young kinsman under your command," he said, "an ensign of the Twenty-third Regiment of Foot."

  "Very probably," said Richard. "I never speak to ensigns." He beckoned to John Rashleigh, who had returned but a few moments ago from his day's ride, and was now hovering at the entrance to the gallery somewhat mud stained and splashed, bewildered by the unexpected company. "Hi, you," called Richard, "Will you summon one of your fellow servants, and carry Mistress Harris's chair to her apartment? She has had enough of the company downstairs."

  "That is John Rashleigh, sir," whispered Peter hurriedly, "the son of the house, and your host in his father's absence."

  "Ha! My apologies," said Richard, walking forward with a smile. "Your dress being somewhat in disorder, I mistook you for a menial. My own young officers lose their rank if they appear so before me. How is your father?"

  "Well, sir, I believe," stammered John in great nervousness.

  "I am delighted to hear it," said Richard. "Tell him so, when you see him. And tell him too that now I am come into the west I propose to visit here very frequently--the course of the war permitting it."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You have accommodation for my officers, I suppose, and for a number of men out in the park, should we wish to bivouac at any time."

  "Yes, indeed, sir."

  "Excellent. And now I propose to dine upstairs with Mistress Harris, who is a close kinswoman of mine, a fact of which you may not be aware. What is the usual method with her chair?"

  "We carry it, sir--it is quite a simple matter." John gave a nod to Peter, who, astonishingly subdued for him, came forward, and the pair of them seized an arm of my chair on either side.

  "It would be an easier matter," said Richard, "if the occupant were bodily removed, and carried separately." And before I could protest he had placed his arms about me and had lifted me from the chair. "Lead on, gentlemen," commanded Richard.

  The strange procession proceeded up the stairs, watched by the company in the gallery and by some of the servants too, who, with their backs straight against the wall, and their eyes lowered, permitted us to pass. John and Peter tramped on ahead, with the chair between them, step-by-step, both of them red about the neck; while I, with my head on Richard's shoulder, and my arms tight about him for fear of falling, thought the way seemed overlong.

  "I was in error just now," said Richard in my ear. "You have changed after all."

  "In what way?" I asked.

  "You are two stone heavier," he answered.

  And so we came to my chamber in the gatehouse.

  10

  I can recollect that supper as if it were yesterday. I lay on my bed with the pillows packed behind me, and Richard was seated on the end of it, with the low table in front of us both.

  It might have been a day since we had parted, instead of fifteen years. When Matty came into the room bearing the platters, her mouth pursed and disapproving--for she had never understood how we came to lose one another, but imagined he had deserted me because of my crippled state--Richard burst out laughing on the instant, calling her "old go-between," which had been his nickname for her in those distant days, and asked her how many hearts she had broken since he saw her last. She was for replying to him shortly, but it was no use. He would have none of it, and, taking the platters from her and putting them on the table, he soon had her reconciled--blushing from head to toe--while he poked fun at her broadening figure and the frizzed curl on her forehead. "There are some half-dozen troopers in the court," he told her, "waiting to make your acquaintance. Go and prove to them that Cornish women are better than the frousts in Devon," and she went off, closing the door behind her, guessing no doubt that for the first time in fifteen years I had no need of her services. He fell to eating right away, for he was always a good trencherman, and soon cleared all that had been put before us, while I--still weak with the shock of seeing him--toyed with the wishbone of a chicken. He started walking about the chamber before he had finished, a habit I remembered well, with a great bone in one hand and a pie in th
e other, talking all the while about the defenses at Plymouth, which his predecessor had allowed to become formidable instead of razing them to the ground on first setting siege to the place. "You'd hardly credit it, Honor," he said, "but there's that fat idiot Digby been sitting on his arse nine months before the walls of Plymouth, allowing the garrison to sortie as they please, fetch food and firewood and build up barricades, while he played cards with his junior officers. Thank God a bullet in his head will keep him to his bed a month or two, and allow me to conduct the siege instead."

  "And what do you propose to do?" I asked.

  "My first two tasks were simple," he replied, "and should have been done last October. I threw up a new earthwork at Mount Batten, and the guns I have placed there so damage the shipping which endeavors to pass through the Sound that the garrison are hard put to it for supplies. Secondly, I have cut off their waterpower, and the mills within the city can no longer grind flour for the inhabitants. Give me a month or two to play with, and I'll have 'em starved." He took a great bite out of his pie, and winked at me.

  "And the blockade by land, is that effective now?" I questioned.

  "It will be, when I've had time to organize it," he answered. "The trouble is that I've arrived to find that most of the officers in my command are worse than useless--I've sacked more than half of them already. I have a good fellow in charge at Saltash, who sent the rebels flying back to Plymouth with several fleas in their ears when they tried a sortie a week or two back--a sharp engagement in which my nephew Jack--Bevil's eldest boy, you remember him--did very well. Last week we sprang a little surprise on one of their outposts close to Maudlyn. We beat them out of their position there, and took a hundred prisoners. I rather think the gentlemen of Plymouth sleep not entirely easy in their beds."

  "Prisoners must be something of a problem," I said. "It is hard enough to find forage in the country for your own men. You are obliged to feed them, I suppose?"

  "Feed them be damned," he answered. "I send the lot to Lydford Castle, where they are hanged without trial for high treason." He threw his drumstick out of the window, and tore the other from the carcass.

  "But, Richard," I said, hesitating, "that is hardly justice, is it? I mean--they are only fighting for what they believe to be a better cause than ours?"

  "I don't give a fig for justice," he replied. "The method is effective, and that's the only thing that matters."

  "I am told the Parliament has put a price upon your head already," I said. "I am told you are much feared and hated by the rebels."

  "What would you have them do, kiss my backside?" he asked. He smiled, and came and sat beside me on the bed.

  "The war is too much with us; let us talk about ourselves," he said. I had not wished for that, but hoped to keep him busy with his siege of Plymouth.

  "Where are you living at the moment?" I parried. "In tents about the fields?"

  "What would I be doing in a tent," he mocked, "with the best houses in Devon at my disposal? Nay, my headquarters are at Buckland Abbey, which my grandfather sold to Francis Drake half a century ago, and I do not mind telling you that I live there very well. I have seized all the sheep and cattle upon the estate, and the tenants pay their rents to me, or else are hanged. They call me the Red Fox behind my back, and the women, I understand, use the name as a threat to their children when they misbehave, saying 'Grenvile is coming. The Red Fox will have you.' "

  He laughed, as if this was a fine jest, but I was watching the line of his jaw, which was heavier than before, and the curve of his mouth that narrowed at the corners.

  "It was not thus," I said softly, "that your brother Bevil's reputation spread throughout the West."

  "No," he said, "and I have not a wife like Bevil had, nor a home I love, nor a great brood of happy children."

  His voice was harsh suddenly, and strangely bitter. I turned my face away, and lay back on my pillows.

  "Do you have your son with you at Buckland?" I asked quietly.

  "My spawn?" he said. "Yes, he is somewhere about the place with his tutor."

  "What is he like?"

  "Dick? Oh, he's a little handful of a chap, with mournful eyes. I call him 'whelp' and make him sing to me at supper. But there's no sign of Grenvile in him--he's the spit of his goddamned mother."

  The boy we would have played with, and taught, and loved. I felt suddenly sad, and oddly depressed, that his father should dismiss him with this careless shrug of a shoulder.

  "It went wrong with you then, Richard, from the beginning," I said.

  "It did," he answered.

  There was a long silence, for we had entered upon dangerous ground.

  "Did you never try," I asked, "to make some life of happiness?"

  "Happiness was not in question," he said. "That went with you, a factor you refused to recognize."

  "I am sorry," I said.

  "So am I," he answered.

  The shadows were creeping across the floor. Soon Matty would come to light the candles.

  "When you refused to see me, that last time," he said, "I knew that nothing mattered any more but bare existence. You have heard the story of my marriage, with much embellishment, no doubt, but the bones of it are true."

  "Had you no affection for her?"

  "None whatever. I wanted her money, that was all."

  "Which you did not get."

  "Not then. I have it now. And her property, and her son--whom I fathered in a moment of black insensibility. The girl is with her mother up in London. I shall get her too one day, when she can be of use to me."

  "You are very altered, Richard, from the man I loved."

  "If I am so, you know the reason why."

  The sun had gone from the windows, the chamber seemed bleak and bare. Every bit of those fifteen years was now between us. Suddenly he reached out his hand to mine, and, taking it, held it against his lips. The touch I so well remembered was very hard to bear.

  "Why in the name of God," he said, rising to his feet, "were you and I marked down for such tragedy?"

  "It is no use being angry," I said. "I gave that up long ago. At first, yes, but not now. Not for many years. Lying on my back has taught me some discipline--but not the kind you engender in your troops."

  He came and stood beside my bed, looking down upon me.

  "Has no one told you," he said, "that you are more lovely now than you were then?"

  I smiled, thinking of Matty and the mirror.

  "I think you flatter me," I answered, "or maybe I have more time now I lie idle, to play with paint and powder."

  No doubt he thought me cool and at my ease, and had no knowledge that his tone of voice ripped wide the dusty years and sent them scattering.

  "There is no part of you," he said, "that I do not now remember. You had a mole in the small of your back which gave you much distress. You thought it ugly--but I liked it well."

  "Is it not time," I said, "that you went downstairs to join your officers? I heard one of them say you were to sleep this night at Grampound."

  "There was a bruise on your left thigh," he said, "caused by that confounded branch that protruded halfway up the apple tree. I compared it to a dark-sized plum, and you were much offended."

  "I can hear the horses in the courtyard," I said. "Your troopers are preparing for the journey. You will never reach your destination before morning."

  "You lie there," he said, "so smug and so complacent on your bed, very certain of yourself now you are thirty-four. I tell you, Honor, I care not two straws for your civility."

  And he knelt then at my bed with his arms about me and the fifteen years went whistling down the wind.

  "Are you still queasy when you eat roast swan?" he whispered.

  He wiped away the silly childish tears that pricked my eyes, and laughed at me, and smoothed my hair.

  "Beloved half-wit, with your goddamned pride," he said, "do you understand now that you blighted both our lives?"

  "I understood that at the
time," I told him.

  "Why then, in the name of heaven, did you do it?"

  "Had I not done so, you would soon have hated me, as you hated Mary Howard."

  "That is a lie, Honor."

  "Perhaps. What does it matter? There is no reason now to harp back on the past."

  "There I agree with you. The past is over. But we have the future with us. My marriage is annulled; you know that, I suppose. I am free to wed again."

  "Then do so, to another heiress."

  "I have no need of an heiress now, with all the estates in Devon to my plunder. I have become a gentleman of fortune to be looked upon with favor by the spinsters of the West."

  "There are many you might choose from, all agog for husbands."

  "In all probability. But I want one spinster only, and that yourself."

  I put my two hands on his shoulders and stared straight at him. The auburn hair, the hazel eyes, the little pulse that beat in his right temple. He was not the only one with recollections. I had my memories too, and could--had I the mind and lack of modesty--have reminded him of a patch of freckles that had been as much a matter for discussion as the mole upon my back.

  "No, Richard."

  "Why?"

  "Because I will not have you wedded to a cripple."

  "You will never change your mind?"

  "Never."

  "And if I carry you by force to Buckland?"

  "Do so, if you will, I can't prevent you. But I shall still be a cripple." I leaned back on my pillows, faint suddenly, and exhausted. It had not been a light thing to bear, this strain of seeing him, of beating down the years. Very gently he released me, and smoothed my blankets, and when I asked for a glass of water he gave me one in silence. It was nearly dark, and the clock in the belfry had struck eight a long while since. I could hear the jingling of harness from the courtyard, and the scraping sound of horses.

  "I must ride to Grampound," he said at length.

  "Yes," I said.

  He stood for a moment looking down onto the court. The candles were lighted now throughout the house. The west windows of the gallery were open, sending a beam of light into my chamber. There was sound of music. Alice was playing her lute, and Peter singing.